Monthly Archive: September, 2006

In Borders yesterday, my cell rang just as I ran across a title that I had to pick up: 50 Signs of Mental Illness: A Guide to Mental Health, Yale University Press, written by NYU psychiatrist, James Whitney Hicks.

The 50 signs were worth writing down: anger, antisocial behavior, anxiety, appetite disturbances, avoidance, body image problems, compulsions, confusion, cravings, deceitfulness, delusions, denial, depression, dissociation, euphoria, fatigue, fears, flashbacks, grandiosity, grief, hallucinations, histrionics, hyperactivity, identity confusion, impulsiveness, intoxication, jealousy, learning difficulties, mania, memory loss, mood swings, movement problems, nonsense, obsessions, oddness, panic, paranoia, physical complaints and pain, psychosis, religious preoccupations, self-mutilation, sexual performance problems, sexual preoccupations, sleep problems, sloppiness, speech difficulties, stress, trauma, and suicidal thoughts.

Insisting that the FBI is monitoring your conversation from the moon, not brushing your hair until washing your hands 50 times, and being so bummed that not even ice cream and sex (substitute your personal gauges) sounds good may be mental illness.

But anger? Body image problems? Grief? Sloppiness?!

The title should be 50 Signs that Show You Are Human or 50 Signs that Show You Are Alive or 50 Signs of Sanity in an Insane World.

I read the first ten or so to my friend Nancy and she laughed and said, “I’ve had all 10 today!”

Later in our conversation she asked, “Are you going to buy that book?”

I said, “No.”

She asked, “It is a joke book, isn’t it?”

I said, “No. It’s serious.”

She laughed even harder. “My God! You’re not kidding! This man’s in the business of making us sick so he can solve the problem!”

I love Nancy.

Having dinner out together on Friday night after a long week is a bad idea. Why?

1. While waiting for the waiter to take drink orders, you’ll be burned out and grumpy with low blood sugar.

2. You’ll talk about work or about your inlaws or his inlaws or your investments or the problem child or how you need to get out more.

3. Or, better, you won’t talk about any of that. So you won’t have anything to talk about.

4. Your expectations will be up because finally you get to go out, you don’t have to cook, and you’ll be reminded how exciting it used to be to go out with him. Then you’ll contrast it with current reality: exhaustion and irritation.

5. You might notice that the couples who are dating seem to be having a good time and all the married couples are like you, fighting fatigue and boredom.
6. You might notice that you don’t have the upbeat attitude you have when you meet your girlfriends for dinner.

7. You might tend to drink too much and eat too much rich food.

8. You will waste money.

9. You might be hung over the next day and then have a bad Saturday morning too, setting the tone for the whole weekend.

10. You’ll wonder if your marriage can be saved, and, worse, wonder if it’s worth saving at all.

A better plan:

Grab a quick bite. Go to a movie. Go to a bookstore. Play a game of tennis or pool. Do something together that doesn’t require waiting for a meal when you’re starving, or entertaining him when you aren’t up for it, or expecting him to entertain you.

Thursday night is our Friday night, so every Thursday night we go to the movies and then close down Borders. It’s mellow. It’s easy. We don’t have to talk to each other and we forget for a while the endless list of issues.

It took years, but once we got that relationship maintenance is more about good design than working on problems, life became much, much easier.

On an Oprah rerun a few days ago Kristin Richard, former wife of Lance Armstrong, spoke heartfully of how she left her career to build her husband’s life and dream. Then, four years later, slammed with celebrity, a toddler and twins, in a foreign country, without defining work of her own, she no longer knew who she was. She and Lance divorced.

Kristin spoke of how important it is in a marriage to keep a sense of one’s self and not to give it up for a marriage or a man.

She was missing a big fat piece of information.

Psychologist Robin Smith then presented her new book and told her story of young marriage, loss of self, and divorce. She and Oprah interviewed two young brides-to-be, fiances in tow, on their doubts and fears about their upcoming weddings. One of the brides broke down, saying that maybe she wasn’t at all ready for marriage. The other said that she and her fiance agreed that they would deal with whatever problems they had now after the wedding. That really fired Robin and Oprah up. How could she go into marriage like that? Read the rest »